New monitor for RX480

Street · 13 Sep 2016 at 15:05

I've just bought myself a new RX480 and fancy a new monitor to go with it to replace my old NEC 24WMGX3 that is about 7 years old. Nothing wrong with the NEC, it's just a bit bulky nowadays and I'd quite fancy going with something a bit bigger.

Is it worth going for 1440p with this card or sticking with 1080p? It's mainly going to be used for gaming as I use my laptop for work and I've got a budget of up to about £300, obviously less is better though! I know nothing about monitors and things seem to have changed a lot since I bought the NEC in 2009. What difference does FreeSync make and is it worth going for? What about curved monitors, are they worth it?

Thanks!

Blackjack Davy · 13 Sep 2016 at 16:44

If you're going for 1440p I'd go with a Freesync version as it'll struggle to maintain high framerates at that res, absolutely fine for 1080p though

Freesync means no tearing, no flickering, smooth display down to a certain % of monitors maximum refresh rate iirc

Seanspeed · 13 Sep 2016 at 16:51

Blackjack Davy said:
If you're going for 1440p I'd go with a Freesync version as it'll struggle to maintain high framerates at that res, absolutely fine for 1080p though

Freesync means no tearing, no flickering, smooth display down to 1/2(?) the monitors maximum refresh rate iirc

Except pretty much no Freesync monitors actually work all the way down to 30hz or below. Most seem to cutoff at 48hz, with a few going down to 40hz. I think 40hz is an ok, but not ideal limit, whereas I would not get one that only worked down to 48hz.

What this means OP is that if your framerate dropped below 48fps, you would no longer get the benefits of Freesync and it will generate a jarring transition back into tearing and jittery feeling framerate.

I'd honestly stick with 1080p at the moment with an RX480. It's a good card, but will struggle more and more at 1440p as time goes on and games get more demanding. But it should remain a good 1080p/60fps card for years.

Street · 13 Sep 2016 at 23:16

Sounds like a plan with the 1080p screens, I wasn't planning on upgrading the card for another few years so don't want it to struggle driving a higher resolution too soon! Something like the Samsung S27F350H or AOC G2770PF look pretty decent and not too pricey.

jigger · 14 Sep 2016 at 09:09

Seanspeed said:
Except pretty much no Freesync monitors actually work all the way down to 30hz or below. Most seem to cutoff at 48hz, with a few going down to 40hz. I think 40hz is an ok, but not ideal limit, whereas I would not get one that only worked down to 48hz.

What this means OP is that if your framerate dropped below 48fps, you would no longer get the benefits of Freesync and it will generate a jarring transition back into tearing and jittery feeling framerate.

I'd honestly stick with 1080p at the moment with an RX480. It's a good card, but will struggle more and more at 1440p as time goes on and games get more demanding. But it should remain a good 1080p/60fps card for years.

Why would anyone want to run a game at 30hz? 30hz is painful.

Tacitus · 14 Sep 2016 at 22:20

Get a Freesync 1440p monitor if possible. It should be pretty smooth

Street · 15 Sep 2016 at 12:17

I'm leaning more towards a 1440p monitor now as I've realised I change graphics cards every 2-3 years but my monitors tend to be double that at least! This means that by the time the 480 is struggling at that res with games, I'll probably be upgrading it anyway. Plus 1440p will feel more of an upgrade than staying at 1080p.

The two I've narrowed it down to are the AOC AG271QX and Acer Predator XF270HU. Any others worth looking at?

Seanspeed · 15 Sep 2016 at 14:30

jigger said:
Why would anyone want to run a game at 30hz? 30hz is painful.

People have different standards.

Tens of millions of people are fine playing many games at 30fps on consoles. Not a stretch to realize that there will be some on PC who are, too.

Either way, I wasn't talking about a capped and consistent 30fps. I'm mainly talking about using a variable refresh rate display and having that tech still kicking if/when a game drops down to that area.

jigger · 15 Sep 2016 at 15:18

30hz and 30fps are not the same thing at all. 10's millions of people might be playing at 30FPS but at 60Hz.

If you have a system that drops down to the performance to 30FPS then locking the FPS to the refresh rate is adding to the pain. At that point you would be much better off spending the money to upgrade the CPU and graphics card than 30Hz VVR capable monitor.

Seanspeed · 15 Sep 2016 at 22:40

jigger said:
30hz and 30fps are not the same thing at all. 10's millions of people might be playing at 30FPS but at 60Hz.

Consoles have high quality framerate capping techniques. Playing a game at 30fps on a 60hz TV is absolutely no different than were it only a 30hz TV. Or a 120hz TV.

Equally, using a good vsync or framerate cap software on PC can achieve the same thing.

So they're not the same thing technically, but they might as well be.

Again though, nobody was talking about playing at a consistent 30fps.......

jigger · 16 Sep 2016 at 00:12

If you can't notice the difference between 60hz and 30hz then... but for me 30hz is horrendous. 30FPS at 60hz not so much. I have no idea why anyone would be interested in using such a low refresh rate screen.

anthony566 · 21 Sep 2016 at 15:55

Street said:
I'm leaning more towards a 1440p monitor now as I've realised I change graphics cards every 2-3 years but my monitors tend to be double that at least! This means that by the time the 480 is struggling at that res with games, I'll probably be upgrading it anyway. Plus 1440p will feel more of an upgrade than staying at 1080p.

The two I've narrowed it down to are the AOC AG271QX and Acer Predator XF270HU. Any others worth looking at?

Also you can adjust the settings to maintain a higher frame rate you don't always have to have everything maxed out ..

senorgrande · 21 Sep 2016 at 23:34

I just got an RX 480 and ultrawide LG 29UC88. The monitor came today so I haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet but I love it so far. The panel is beautiful. It has one of the better Freesync ranges I've seen as well - 40-75Hz.

Even after not long with it, 21:9 kind of feels like how games should be played. Great being able to watch movies with no black bars as well.

Freesync was a bit fiddly to get working properly (it doesn't seem to like Rivatuner) but when it works it's beautiful.

As for the RX 480 handling the 2560x1080 resolution - I'm getting over 60fps in The Witcher 3 with everything on ultra and FXAA going in to Novigrad. Above 70 out in the wild. Above 60 in Arkham Knight with ultra and SMAA. 115-150 in Doom (Vulkan) with everything as high as it'll go.

orange_smurf · 22 Sep 2016 at 21:02

there's a tide of changes in monitor tech next year - no point spending 500+ now imho. if you plan to keep a monitor for some time i wouldn't buy just yet - wait till after xmas to spend ur 300 unless reasons (lg as suggested is a good pick). stick with low res, high fps as suggested. also, have you considered using a HD TV instead if you are just gaming?

orange_smurf · 22 Sep 2016 at 21:03

also, yay for the NEC 24WMGX3! woop!!! i thought i was the only one left using one

Street · 22 Sep 2016 at 23:05

orange_smurf said:
also, yay for the NEC 24WMGX3! woop!!! i thought i was the only one left using one

Whoop whoop, they are cracking monitors!

They are huge though! To be fair, I'm in no rush to change it so if it's worth holding off buying for a bit I probably will. That LG does look nice though.

anthony566 said:
Also you can adjust the settings to maintain a higher frame rate you don't always have to have everything maxed out ..

What is this heresy?!

mark43 · 23 Sep 2016 at 17:35

orange_smurf said:
there's a tide of changes in monitor tech next year - no point spending 500+ now imho. if you plan to keep a monitor for some time i wouldn't buy just yet - wait till after xmas to spend ur 300 unless reasons (lg as suggested is a good pick). stick with low res, high fps as suggested. also, have you considered using a HD TV instead if you are just gaming?

What changes are we expecting, I had a little Google but couldn't find much detail of what's coming soon?

Phil2008 · 25 Sep 2016 at 12:39

senorgrande said:
Freesync was a bit fiddly to get working properly (it doesn't seem to like Rivatuner) but when it works it's beautiful

Do you need to turn off vsync for Freesync to work, as I am hopefully getting a Freesync monitor today, if it turns up.

orange_smurf · 25 Sep 2016 at 16:41

mark43 said:
What changes are we expecting, I had a little Google but couldn't find much detail of what's coming soon?

take a look at articles on tftcentral. it's always good to know whats around the corner before you spend - no?

senorgrande · 25 Sep 2016 at 18:21

Phil2008 said:
Do you need to turn off vsync for Freesync to work, as I am hopefully getting a Freesync monitor today, if it turns up.

You do and you need to make sure your fps stay in the freesync range of your monitor. Which the best way to do so seems to be using FRTC. The upper limit of my monitor is 75Hz and setting FRTC to 75 or 74fps still produced tearing but on 73fps it seems to be perfect.

RTSS either with or without FRTC seems to be buggy in certain games - Bioshock Infinite for example would tear but only in the bottom quarter or so of the screen.